Category: thoughts

Bob Ross’ endorphins

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There’s a difference between the thought of mortality and the thought of life being fleeting. At least in my mind space, there is. Mortality is darker.

Most days, I don’t think about mortality. But it snuck into my mind last night–like a dark, eerie fog–while we were watching Bob Ross paint his happy trees on screen. We invite him into our room almost every night, lights dimmed, watching him do his magic as he lulls us to sleep with his sweeping strokes, soothing voice.

J handed me my melatonin pills, which I chased down with warm water, and I tucked myself into bed. Bob was painting a mountain scene tonight, a darker color palate than his usual but his face was as smiley as ever. I just love the joy that radiates from his eyes.

I wondered what it would be like to hang out with him for a day. A hipster-ish coffee shop and a squirrel came together in my mind. And his calming smile.

“Bob is still alive, right?” I floated the question into the air, to no one in particular.

“I don’t think so…I think he passed away a while ago from cancer.”

My eyes moved from the screen to J, who was getting ready to climb into bed. I couldn’t tell if he was just guessing, or if the comment came from a place of knowledge. I sat up in bed.

“What? But he’s not even that old! How old was he?” My face felt a little warm.

“In his 50’s, I think?”

I sunk back down under the covers. The room started fading to dark.

Will I live to see 50?

The thought took over my headspace and filled my veins before I even had a chance, a moment, to contain it. I closed my eyes. My mind instantly flickering images of my widowed husband, my motherless child.

No, no, nonono NO.  But–Bob’s so happy! Why didn’t his endorphins help keep cancer at bay? He of all people shouldn’t have died from cancer. What does this mean for me?

It’s a ridiculous thought, I know, that whole endorphins thing. But my mind kept rolling with the crazy and the nonsense and fear was now racing through my veins.

There’s this thing my therapist had taught me at our last session, where I picture my fears floating on leaves down a quiet river to watch them drift gently away from me, creating mental distance between my fears and my reality. He taught me this technique to use in situations like this, where I become paralyzed by the Big Dark Things my mind dreams up.

Lying in bed with my eyes still shut and now wet, I float my mortality leaf down the Eno River of my mind. I speak slowly into my mind space and my quivering heart.

“Death by cancer” is just a thought.

It is not my present reality.

Float away, fear.

I watch my fear–a blackish blob on a little green leaf–float down the river until out of view. I leave the riverbank and walk my mortal legs to the throne of my Savior, falling at His feet with no words, only tears.

Mortal legs, immortal spirit. Cling, cling to Him.

Float those fears to Jesus.

Elections and cancer

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Well, folks–the “election of our lifetime” has come and gone. Many of the measures and candidates that I’d voted for didn’t win.

As passionate as I am about these kinds of things, I’m not upset that the majority of my votes weren’t winners. I think cancer has a lot to do with this.

I’m not trying to be facetious in correlating elections with cancer. But as I refreshed my screen every 10 minutes as the results were streaming in, I found myself wondering what impact my vote has, in the grand scheme of things. How I can read up on the issues and the stances of candidates and fill the bubble next to the one who most closely represents what I hope for our nation, but in the end, no candidate ever perfectly represents all my values, and all of it is really just a crapshoot. I think about what my vote means in a district like mine, where the overwhelming majority of its constituents are unlike me, a foreigner on my own turf. I think about how each measure isn’t as clear as its advocates–and enemies–make it seem, and how there is a cost to both sides. There is always a cost, and never any guarantees.

And as I thought about these things, I felt I was treading on familiar turf. Cancerland is filled with so many moving parts, pros and cons; and each one has a cost. There is no single absolute answer or cure to the issue. I can educate myself until the cows come home and try to choose the best treatment for me, but in the end, it’s all a crapshoot.

All I can do as a cancer patient, and a citizen of this country, is to do the best I can with the information I have. Do the best with what you’ve got. And leave the rest in the hands of God.

Discomfort on familiar turf. It may sound crazy, but I’m thankful.

When the evening comes

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O LORD, make me know my end and what is the measure of my days; let me know how fleeting I am! Behold, you have made my days a few handbreadths, and my lifetime is as nothing before you. Surely all mankind stands as a mere breath! Selah

Psalm 39:4-5

Breakfast is my favorite meal
+
Fall is my favorite season
=
Fall deepens my love for breakfast.

Ta-da!

I don’t get how some people have no love for breakfast. I’m talking to you, coffee-and-protein-bar-on-the-run people, and you, I’m-just-not-hungry-in-the-morning-so-what’s-the-point? folks. We just can’t be friends, sorry.

Anyway, after my 9AM PT appointment this morning, I was majorly craving breakfast and made my way to Chick-Fil-A. With the warm bag of food on my lap, I parked in a small patch of morning sun beside a sprawling red maple.

It’s a crisp fall morning outside my heated aluminum cocoon. The sky is blue, the trees in the lot are red and yellow, its abandoned leaves chasing one another across the asphalt lot. I left my engine running, radio on, and stretched in the sun’s rays as melodies danced into my space. Enveloped in warmth and words so beautifully strung, it hit me:

What a blessing it is to have cancer.

Pausing here—please don’t get me wrong. There is nothing inherently good about cancer, and I would trade in my cancer for my health in a heartbeat. And I don’t mean to undermine anyone else’s cancer diagnosis or experience.

But as I sang along with the lyrics, my mouth full of greasy fast food and my eyes dripping, I thought of my future and my Savior who carries me there. I became undone.

He’s coming on the clouds, kings and kingdoms will bow down
And every chain will break, as broken hearts declare his praise
Who can stop the Lord Almighty?

Our God is a Lion, the Lion of Judah
He’s roaring with power and fighting our battles
And every knee will bow before you

Our God is a Lamb, the Lamb that was slain
For the sin of the world, his blood breaks the chains
And every knee will bow before the Lion and the Lamb

Can you imagine it? It’s beautiful to try.

You’re rich in love and you’re slow to anger
Your name is great and your heart is kind
For all your goodness I will keep on singing
Ten thousand reasons for my heart to find

And on that day when my strength is failing
The end draws near and my time has come
Still my soul will sing your praise unending
Ten thousand years and then forevermore!

The magnitude of my weakened health and strength cannot be forgotten in my day-to-day living. It is front and center, leaving me crippled by the hour with pain, failures, abandoned dreams, failing relationships, guilt, nausea,  insomnia, anxiety, and so much fear. Everything that was once strong and confident in myself has, as sandcastles along the shore, been washed into the foam of the sea.

But, Jesus. My Lion and Lamb. He’s coming back for his weak and weary child.  He’s coming back for ME. Oh, what hope. What hope! Oh death, where is your sting? The future is so bright for those of us who believe! There is no tragic end for this wretched soul, regardless of how cancer plays out in my life. My soul will sing his praise unending; 10,000 years and then forevermore!  Christ has never been my hope and joy to the capacity that he is now…it’s almost as if I’ve been born again, again–and as a woman who’s known Christ for so long, I am so ashamed by this honesty.

We are all dying, friends. Not just folks with cancer or disease. It’s only a matter of a few more breaths before our time on this side of eternity is up, and the trials of our lives will end at the gates of eternal joy or eternal hell. Regardless of how hard, or dark, or lonely this life gets, my fate is secure. And God is still–always–good.

I wish it didn’t have to take cancer for me to have these truths sink in properly.  Urgently.  Completely.  But God knew what I needed, and he wrote it into my story.  I’m so thankful.

Bless the Lord, O my soul.  Let me be singing when the evening comes.

Dreams

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March was a big month for me. 

My job contract was coming to an end, and though bittersweet, I was mostly excited. It had been a grueling two years and I yearned for rest.

Hubs and I sat down together in early March to discuss my plan for the remainder of the year. 

  • April: rest! 
  • Summer: quality family time. invest in developing my art and spend more time experimenting in the kitchen 
  • Fall: open an etsy shop and see if it’s something worth investing in long-term
  • Next spring: possibly prepare for bar exam

Ah. March was a month of dreams. A field of dreams.

Six months later, fall blows brown into our yard and here we are, in a house ruled by cancer. 

It came out of left field, blind-sighting our little family of three as we ran around knee-deep in the wild flowers that covered our field of dreams. 

I mourn the life and dreams we had to leave behind to fight cancer full-time.  All the time off J’s work for the never-ending appointments; all the back-to-school events my body wouldn’t allow me to attend; all the medication and supplements, face masks, hand sanitizer, medical bills strewn around the house; all the hours spent in bed staring at my ceiling, unable to move; all the strands of my long, dark hair on my pillow, carpet, clothes, bathroom tile that just won’t quit. 

All of it seems like one enormous waste. 

Several months ago, when the doorframes  and foundation of our lives started crumbling around us, I holed myself in the house and spent a chunk of each day crying. On one of those days, I sat in my room with my knees hugged tight to my chest as a song I’d never heard gently tiptoed in through my speakers.

The hurt that broke your heart
And left you trembling in the dark
Feeling lost and alone
Will tell you hope’s a lie
But what if every tear you cry
Will seed the ground where joy will grow

Nothing is wasted
Nothing is wasted
In the hands of our Redeemer
Nothing is wasted

It’s from the deepest wounds
That beauty finds a place to bloom
And you will see before the end
That every broken piece is
Gathered in the heart of Jesus
And what’s lost will be found again

Nothing is wasted
Nothing is wasted
In the hands of our Redeemer
Nothing is wasted

When hope is more than you can bear
And it’s too hard to believe it could be true
And your strength fails you halfway there
You can lean on me and I’ll believe for you
And in time you will believe it too

Nothing is wasted
Nothing is wasted
Sometimes we are waiting
In sorrow we have tasted
But joy will replace it
Nothing is wasted
In the hands of our Redeemer
Nothing is wasted*

These beautifully woven words moved me deeply. My trickle of sadness turned into a rushing current of sorrow subterranean twisted with hope effervescent.  A flood of tears.  I remember. I clung to the words I did not fully understand but had faith to be true and I accepted its warm embrace. That is faith, isn’t it? Gripping white-knuckled the truth of what we hope for, even when we do not understand.

As I sit here now surveying the rubble around me, I remember this truth, and hope returns.

Nothing is wasted. 

—–

*Jason Gray, Nothing is Wasted.

Hurricane

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The two hurricanes that recently stormed through our city happened to coincide with my chemo weeks.  The wind and rain of today’s was particularly violent, howling through our walls and beating off a good amount of leaves from our trees, speeding up the foliage fall.  I had a front-row view of it all, laying in bed as I stared out my rain-pelted window.  

I took a shower tonight. I hardly ever wash my hair anymore and I can’t stand how dirty hair feels.  I close my eyes when I wash my hair now but can’t escape the feeling of it stuck all over my body, long fallen strands clinging everywhere, refusing to let go.  I keep my eyes closed and try to wipe off or stick what I can onto the shower wall.  It’s a habit I’ve had for forever, one that hubs finds particularly annoying.

But not these days.  He quietly cleans the heavy webs of hair without a word.

It feels like a mess, all this. Like my own little hurricane within me; my hair slipping away under the shower head like the leaves that were pelted off the branches outside my window.  I can think of several lines of optimism and hope that I can end these thoughts with, but.  Not tonight. Tonight, to the sound of drizzling rain, my damp head of hair now clinging across my freshly changed pillowcase–I simply mourn. 

A shift in every story

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I feel like writing something to express the purpose of this blog.  I keep battling between wanting to be hidden and anonymous, and wanting to be seen and heard and not alone.  Honestly, what have I got to hide?

Memorializing things in print is a scary thing.  Words have so much power.  I have—I always have had—this immense fear of saying the wrong thing; saying too much; saying honest things that are dark and ugly.  These are all the kinds of things I long to dump into this space.

But I have hope for my story and the words that will build it.  Right now, there is a lot of ugly in my mind and my world.  I’m not proud of my attitude and the many weak moments of faith that have inundated this season of my life.  But my story is not finished, and I’m so hopeful.

My story is evolving.  

I look forward to witnessing how God shifts my story towards more faith, grace and joy—regardless of which direction my circumstances turn.

Ginormoustrosity

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A few days ago, I woke up gently from a pleasant dream to the sound of birds outside my window. It was still early, the sun was just starting to lighten the sky, just a hint. And as I smiled at it, my face facing the window, it suddenly hit me like an anvil straight to the stomach. I might have flinched.

I’m the girl with cancer.

I pulled the covers over my head and tried to run back into a dream. Any dream.

I’ve often used escape as a coping mechanism for when reality get a bit too hard. Books, yoga, TV, food, funny cat videos (i don’t even like cats but cat videos are the BEST). But as I approach the start of chemo, it’s getting harder to find a hiding place that’s big enough to house me and my ginormous reality.

But my God in heaven…no instrument can measure his ginormoustrosity.

You are my hiding place
You always fill my heart
With songs of deliverance
Whenever I am afraid
I will trust in You

Again

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The phone call came around 11 this morning. I was in my room, sitting by the window, scribbling a grocery list on the back of an envelope just as I answered my phone.  The moment his voice greeted me, I knew.

I knew. I knew. I knew.

And my thoughts immediately went to, I don’t want to be alone right now. Crap crap crap crap crap what do I do, I’m all alone and he’s going to tell me that it’s cancer.

I wonder what it’s like to pick up the phone and have to delivery that kind of news. I wonder if doctors do a little pep talk to themselves. I wonder if they imagine what their patient is doing at that very moment. I wonder if they just dissociate and mentally float off to a happier place.

Maybe they just think about what’s for dinner tonight. Not phased one bit.

Five seconds of small talk and he gets straight to it. They did find cancer. I’m sorry, I know it’s not what we were hoping for or expecting.

His tone is so kind. I try my hardest to be present in the moment and our conversation. I don’t want to let any detail slip past me. But I could feel myself drifting–like an astronaut floating slo-mo in space–and my mind went cloudy gray. I catch a few details:

Grade 3. Highly unusual characteristics. Colleagues and I are totally surprised.

I stare down at my grocery list I was making before I got the call.
carrots.
onions.
cheese.
Nodding and repeating “uh huh, uh huh” until I can’t anymore and the dam breaks loose.

It breaks when he asks if I want him to call J to relay the news. Um, no…well, uh…I don’t know…actually, okay, yes…can you please call him and let him know?

I’m crying and his discomfort is palpable in the silence on the other end. I try to hold it in. He’s a nice man, I don’t want to mess up his morning with my Ugly Sob.

I’m angry.  They were so sure it wasn’t cancer!  For the longest time, they didn’t even want to biopsy it.  Even during the biopsy they assured me it was nothing to worry about.

I thank him and hang up the phone.

For a moment, everything is frozen, quiet. And then it comes: waves of heavy, from-the-gut, deep ugly sobs. I grab a nearby pillow and heave-cry into it. I want to not be alone, I want to call someone and just cry—and I don’t know who. I imagine J getting the news right now, this very moment, and the heave-cries get louder. I don’t want to put him through this again. I want more than anything not to have to put him through this again.

The pup inches his way closer to me and cocks his head as his eyes lock into mine. I grab him and rock back and forth with him in my arms, sobbing in my armchair, by the bed that I laid in like a vegetable for weeks as I recovered from my TBI.

Why is this happening? I need someone or something to blame. My doctors? Me? Too much stress? Too much sugar? God?

I know that I’m not right in blaming God. I know this. But my mind automatically goes there. Why, God? This is so unfair! What did I do that you think this is what should happen to me and my family, again? How are we going to survive this? We’ve all had to endure too much…this is too much.

Too much.

Too much.